NFL Week 1 red flags vs. green flags: biggest causes for concern & optimism feat. Sheil Kapadia

Nate Tice (0:00)

On this episode of Football 301, Sheil Kapadia from The Ringer joins me for some red flags and green flags. Week one takeaways that have us feeling iffy, we're feeling really positive. And we also start the show with a Monday night football, Broncos, Chiefs, recap, Andy Reid establishing the run. Let's go, Kenneth Walker going off. Very fun show with Sheil. See you guys in a sec.

Hello and welcome to Football 301 presented by Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL, who's giving football fans more ways to watch, play and win all season long. I am your host, Nate Tice. We got a great show for you guys today. I did not do this on purpose. I did not wear red for this, but we do have a theme today. We're looking at green flags and red flags from NFL Week 1

Takes or things that we're getting excited about or maybe a little worried, maybe a little concerned. And to help me do that is my great friend from The Ringer, Sheil Kapadia. Great to see you, Sheil. How are you doing today?

Sheil Kapadia (1:07)

Great to see you. Good to be here. I'm just going to take people behind the scenes right away, Nate, and let them know you were taking some PEDs, some podcasts, enhancing drugs before the podcast, pounding an espresso, or whatever it was. I love that. We're in football guy podcasting mode right here.

Nate Tice (1:26)

One of my favorite memories of podcasting ever, or being in media, is when you and I worked at The Athletic, and we had a gambling segment. And whoever, if we had a heavy bet, like an all-in bet, we had to do a punishment if we didn't get it. And we had the same one, which was like a Dan Campbell line special or something of some sort. We were early on the Dan Campbell stuff. But we had the Luce and then we had to have Dan Campbell's drink order, which was a nitro cold brew with two shots of espresso or something like that. I'm trying to remember what it was.

And I remember I was smelling colors. And it just rocked me for that show. And it's actually one of my favorite memories. But I can't remember what his drink order is, but I did it for the podcasting terms. And yeah, I don't know if you survived that, or if that was just me, heart fluttering, not sleeping for a week.

Sheil Kapadia (2:19)

Yeah, no, I think we both ordered it. I don't know what the order was. It was crazy. You drank the whole thing. I'm like, I'm going to take a sip of this, but I'm not crazy. So yeah, that was a great memory for me, too.

Nate Tice (2:30)

I was like, yeah, he's a big guy. I can handle this. No, I couldn't handle it. No, no, no, no, I could not handle it. Yeah, I would not be doing that. Well, I might need that today with my one-year-old not sleeping last night. But anyway, it doesn't matter. We're going to get to Monday night football takeaways before we get into those green and red flags. And we might actually have some green and red flags from the game last night. The Chiefs win 31 to 10

Andy heard the noise. Andy signed Kenneth Walker and established it. He established the run. He got Patrick Mahomes under center and he ran the rock all night long. Kenneth Walker finishes with 23 attempts, 191 total yards, two total touchdowns. The Chiefs running backs, I looked this up. I'm sure you have some stats because you're great at this. Finished with the second most yards by Chiefs running back since Patrick Mahomes, in a single game since Patrick Mahomes took over as starter in 2018

They did it. That's what the off season plan was. I'm going to say this is kind of a green flag because that's exactly what I was hoping they would do and they did it. And also we have some Broncos offensive roughness that's kind of red flag ish. But Sheil, takeaways from Monday Night Football and the Chiefs pounding the ball all night long.

Sheil Kapadia (3:46)

Yeah, you know, Nate, this is like in March and April when teams are making their off season moves and we try to analyze them. I'm like, all right, I understand. You didn't have an explosive run game last year. You can't just go sign a high price running back and give yourself an explosive run game. That's not how it works in the NFL. It's about scheme. It's about blocking. It's about offensive line. It's not about just going, oh, you're just going to translate.